Monday, May 10, 2010

In case you've forgotten X-Statix and their team leader Mr. Sensitive, Guy Smith was a mutant who had to wear a special suit to protect his extreme sensitivity to, well, everything. And in the X-Statix/Avengers clash to recover the fractured brain of Doop, he faced off against a likewise armored opponent, the invincible Iron Man in X-Statix #24: "The Good and the Famous, part six." Written by Peter Milligan, pencils by Mike Allred, inks by Nick Craine.

Searching for a piece of Doop's brain in France, Guy and Tony fight it out physically and verbally, with Tony bringing up Captain America's psychological profile of Guy: he accuses Guy of not wanting to be "Mr. Sensitive" or the leader of X-Statix, and that he'd rather be a "meat-and-potatoes, middle of the road tough guy, like, say, Cable!" Low blow, there.

But, the brain piece had been recovered by the Church of the Naked Truth, a sect that believed clothing was offensive to God. The cult leader (who was in the closet about wearing pants...) says he'll only give the piece to someone naked, and, well, you see where this is going:

On paper, this should be a cakewalk for Tony, since Guy's in almost agonizing pain just standing there without his armor: even the soft grass beneath his feet would feel like walking on rusty nails. But Guy's martial arts training and knowledge of pressure points lets him take advantage of Tony's health issues.

Who gets the Doop piece in the end? Well, it's a bit of a cheat in order to keep the two teams' score where it needs to be for the next issue's Thor/Doop battle. But it's also probably more of Tony Stark than you expected to see today...

I loved X-Statix/X-Force, if for nothing else because of the bizzare style the series had. It clashed violently against the normal Marvel Coninuity, but I liked it so much I forced it to fix in my head. (Prof X is a lot more crazy, in my view, because of his appearences in the book)